The Great Assessment Debate

     In my past experience of being assessed my teachers have mainly used the summative form of testing. Summative testing I just learned is the use of tests, finals, or EOGs. This is not the best approach because it is comparative to throwing a child into a pool without every swimming before but only watching someone else swim. So.. yes I am saying that teachers drown their students. I have been drowned multiple times and I am sure tons and tons of other students have been too. I am not a believer in the summative assessment use.
      Before taking this class I was unaware of the proactive form of assessment. Also known as the formative assessment. In Education 250 we do checkpoints, discussion, exit tickets, and blogs. When we use these formative assessments our teachers still figure out what we know and what we don't because it is extremely easy to let them know what we don't know in our personal blogs and in our informal class discussions. This method of assessment is a non stressful way for the students to let the teachers know what we know and have learned.
     When we assess students it should a teachers top priority to let their students know what they are doing well and what they can improve on. In class we qualified feedback as "does my feedback require my student to do something to continue/improve learning?" I think that feedback should be used all the time during regular class. Especially positive feedback, I think that encouraging students is such a great way to boost their leaning moral. When giving constructivism feedback it should be phrased in a way that student want to achieve it.
     In my future class I am going to give my students a flotation device until they are ready to swim without a life jacket.